A conventional User Equipment (UE) is a single integrated device integrated with a wireless access means, used for mobile communication services. At present, many users each own a couple of UEs with different capabilities, such as UEs supporting audio, video, images or other special media services. A couple of UEs owned by a user constitute a Person Network (PN) by interconnecting with one another, and PNM is a service implementing management of UEs in a PN and including a redirection service for UEs in the PN. The UEs in this disclosure include all terminals that can constitute a PN and access an IMS, and are also referred to as mobile stations, user equipments, or the like in different systems.
The PNM service is also required to be supported in the IMS. A system framework of the IMS is shown in FIG. 1, comprising a UE 101, an Interrogating Call Session Control Function (I-CSCF) 102, a Serving Call Session Control Function (S-CSCF) 103, a Home Subscriber Server (HSS) 104, and a Personal Network Management Application Server (PNM AS) and Network Application Function (NAF) 105. In addition, the IMS may involve other functional entities such as a Proxy Call Session Control Function (P-CSCF) during a session. Wherein PNM AS/NAF 105 is a new functional entity introduced into the IMS domain, and specifically:
The PNM AS is used to receive a terminating call service session establishment request (also referred to as initial request) from the S-CSCF 103, determine whether to execute a session redirection service according to data configured by the user, return a redirected terminating call service session establishment request if the user has set a configured UE, and connect to a functional entity registered by the configured UE through a Mw/MM interface. In addition, the user can configure service data in the PNM AS through an Ut interface. To ensure security of configuration data, it is required to firstly connect a configuration request to the NAF (may be bound with the PNM AS 103), then the NAF authenticates and authorizes the user's identity, and then the authenticated and authorized configuration request is forwarded to the PNM AS by the NAF.
According to requirements of the redirection service for UEs in a PN, a couple of UEs owned by a user are required to firstly register themselves in the IMS domain, and then implement their registrations in the PN through the PNM. After registration of the UEs in the PN, the user can perform service configuration for the UEs already registered in the PN via the Ut interface so that a terminating call service request to any UE for which the redirection service is activated in the PN is forwarded to a configured UE. The user may set a couple of configured UEs, each of which has a different priority. In addition, a method for configuring a special UE and implementing a redirection service for it needs to considered. The special UE is a UE whose PUI is simultaneously shared by other UEs, and the PUI is also referred to as shared PUI.
In the current specifications, a third party registration in the IMS domain is used to implement registration of a UE in a PN. When a user registers in the IMS domain, the S-CSCF matches with initial filter criteria to trigger a third party registration at the PNM AS. After the registration in the PN is finished, capability information of the UE is stored in a database of the PNM AS, and a registration state of a PUI associated with the UE is modified as well. An example of a relationship between the PUI and a Private User Identity (PVI) of the UE and the registration state of the PUI of the UE is shown in table 1. In the table, user equipment-1 i.e. UE-1 owns a PVI—1, which associates with 2 PUIs which are PUI—1—1 and PUI—1—2. The PUI—1—2 is also associated with a PVI—2 of a user equipment-2 i.e. UE-2, that is, the PUI—1—2 is shared by the UE-1 and the UE-2 simultaneously. PN-ID is an identity of the PN, and is meaningful only in the PNM AS.
TABLE 1PVIPUIRegistration statePN-ID #nPVI_1(UE-1)PUI_1_1YESPUI_1_2YESPVI_2(UE-2)PUI_1_2YESPVI_3(UE-3)PUI_3_1YESPVI_4(UE-4)PUI_4_1NOPN-ID #n + 1
After registration, suppose that the registration states in the database of the PNM AS are as shown in table 1, in which UE-1 is registered in the PN with the PUI—1—1 and PUI—1—2, UE-2 and user equipment-3, i.e. UE-3, complete the registrations in the PN with the PUI—1—2 and the PUI—3—1 respectively, and UE-4 is not registered in the PN. The redirection service for UEs is used to forward a terminating call request to a UE configured with the service to a configured UE in the PN.
To illustrate the processing flow in the current specifications, a case in which there is no shared PUI is introduced at first, that is, assuming the UE-1 only has the PUI—1—1 as its PUI, and a configured UE is the UE-2 associated with the PUI—1—2. In this case, the redirection service (also referred to as session redirection service) is performed when the UE-1 is called, and a flow of the redirection service in the IMS domain is shown in FIG. 2, comprising the following steps of:
201) S-CSCF#1 receiving an initial request message sent to the UE-1, the message containing a request Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) associated with the PUI—1—1 of the UE-1;
202) S-CSCF#1 determining that it is an initial request for a terminating call of a UE, and invoking a terminating call service control logic to process the initial request for a terminating call of the UE-1;
Wherein the processing by the terminating call service control logic comprises evaluating initial Filter Criteria (iFC), and S-CSCF#1 routes the initial request to the PNM AS in the case that the iFC matches;
203) S-CSCF#1 routing the initial request message to the PNM AS according to a result of the processing of the initial request for a terminating call of the UE-1 by the terminating call service control logic;
204) the PNM AS executing a PNM redirection service control logic according to configuration data in the PN of the user, and determining whether to route the initial request to the configured UE, i.e. the UE-2 associated with the PUI—1—2, in the PN;
205) if a result of the processing by the PNM redirection service control logic is to redirect the initial request to the UE-2 by the PNM AS, then the PNM AS sending a redirected initial request message to the S-CSCF#1, the redirected initial request message containing a request URI of the UE-2, i.e. a request URI of the PUI—1—2;
206) S-CSCF#1 taking the redirected initial request message as an originating call message of a UE, and forwarding it to S-CSCF#2 at which the UE-2 is registered;
Wherein, S-CSCF#1 and S-CSCF#2 may be a same entity or different entities;
207) S-CSCF#2 taking the redirected initial request message received as a terminating call message to a UE, and invoking a terminating call service control logic to process the UE associated with the PUI—1—2, herein it can directly be determined that the initial request message is an initial request for a terminating call of the UE-2;
208) S-CSCF#2 processing the redirected initial request based on a standard call establishment flow.
It can be seen from the above flow that the redirection service of the PNM in the IMS domain is lack of consideration of a case in which there is a shared PUI. If a configured UE set by the user is one of the UEs with a shared PUI, for example, UEs associated with the PUI—1—2 are UE-1 and UE-2, and the configured UE is the UE-2, because only information on the PUI—1—2 is contained in the redirected initial request message, S-CSCF#2 cannot uniquely locate the configured UE-2 according to this PUI in the step 208 based on the current specifications, but may use a fork technique to ring UEs serially or in parallel, or find a suitable UE therein according to caller preferences.
If a user wants to designate one of his/her UEs as a configured UE during configuration, and a couple of UEs associated with a shared PUI are all capable of supporting services configured in a PN of the user, then it is impossible to redirect a session initial request to the configured UE relying on the current specifications.
It can be seen from the above analysis that the current redirection service technique of the PNM in the IMS domain does not meet a redirection service requirement of UEs associated with a shared PUI, which is disadvantageous when a user wishes to uniquely designate a configured UE. Moreover, a capability requirement for UEs associated with a shared PUI in implementation of a redirection service is not considered either.